Prohibiting marijuana is not the answer

Thursday

Mar 25, 2010 at 3:15 AM

The Daily Democrat believes that maintaining harsh penalties against marijuana possession will help parents keep their children from tragically following in the footsteps of Janis Joplin, John Belushi, and Jimi Hendrix ("Legalizing pot is not the answer," March 18). However, we all know that some well-intentioned policies fail to achieve the outcomes that are desired. Could the prohibition of marijuana prove to be one of these policies that ultimately causes more harm than good? I would argue that the answer is yes.

The bill which recently passed the House does not legalize marijuana — it merely reduces the penalty for possessing 1/4 ounce or less — but if the debate is to be about legalization, we should begin by considering a few important facts.

The first fact is that marijuana is widely available throughout New Hampshire despite decade after decade of prohibition. High school and college students generally say marijuana is easier to get than alcohol, and many black market dealers don't seem to mind if their customers are underage. We read about plenty of busts in the newspapers, but even police admit that these busts have little effect on the availability of marijuana in New Hampshire.

The second fact is that marijuana cannot be blamed for the deaths of Joplin, Belushi, or Hendrix. In fact, if these three entertainers had been using marijuana instead of alcohol and other deadly drugs, there's a chance they might still be with us today. The notorious marijuana user Willie Nelson is still going strong at age 76, having given up booze and other drugs many years ago, so this is not difficult to imagine.

Joplin and Hendrix died weeks apart in the fall of 1970. The primary cause of Joplin's death was heroin overdose, with alcohol as a possible contributing factor. Hendrix died of a sleeping pill overdose combined with heavy alcohol consumption. Both were 27, and they would be 67 if they were alive today.

In 1982, the 33-year-old Belushi overdosed on a "speedball," which is an injection of cocaine and heroin combined. He would be 61 today.

This brings me to a third and final fact, which is that no human has ever died of a marijuana overdose. By contrast, there are hundreds of deaths each year in the U.S. from alcohol overdose, many of which tragically occur at our nation's colleges and universities. Talk to marijuana users and many will tell you they are making a safer choice. By what standard of comparison can we really say they are wrong?

The main reason marijuana is linked with more dangerous drugs is because prohibition forces all illegal drugs into the same black market. Policymakers in the Netherlands understood this phenomenon, and in 1976 they made it legal for small amounts of marijuana to be sold to adults in licensed coffee shops. Their intent was to separate marijuana from more dangerous drugs, and evidence shows that the policy has been a clear success. For example, we see that cocaine use is five times higher in the U.S. than in the Netherlands, and even that fewer teens try marijuana in the Netherlands than in the U.S.

There is no perfect policy that can keep marijuana away from children, but regulating marijuana similarly to alcohol would be a better strategy than all-out prohibition. Like alcohol, marijuana is definitely not a harmless substance, but its harms can be more easily managed by society if we choose to regulate it rather than forcing it into a dangerous, underground marketplace where many deaths do occur. All things considered, it makes little sense to continue channeling all those profits directly into the pockets of criminals and cartels, and the choice is ours to make.